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> And yet, astonishingly, you get your mail. If the mail can find its way to the right point, so can this type of URL. Yes, mail can find its way to the right

> And yet, astonishingly, you get your mail. If the mail can find its way to the right point, so can this type of URL. Yes, mail can find its way to the right point precisely because most countries have added a post code to the addressing system in order to deal with ambiguity. Furthermore, mail is routed by machines, but ultimately delivered by people. And not always flawlessly too (especially with "weird" addresses. I used to live in a house with "28 1/3" as a number, which lead to massive problems). URLs are expected to work without human intervention, so more precision is required. > Your counter examples are interesting but not what this example is showing: a nice URL for a physical mailing address. No, the title of this post is "I made an example app to show how Google map URLs should look". And who types URLs anyway. If you are on HN, you probably belong to the tiny group of people who occasionally types "google.com?q=myquery" into your address bar, but I'm pretty sure you did not get to the page you are currently on by typing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5624287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5624287 URLs are not the best form of user input, and even if they were, typing searching for "199 valencia st sf" is a lot more efficient (and less sensitive to errors) than typing the full URL of this example (http://nice-map-urls.herokuapp.com/united-states/california/san-francisco/mission-dolores/valencia-st/199 http://nice-map-urls.herokuapp.com/united-states/california/...). So, the URL is not short enough to be useful for direct user input and not precise enough to serve as a reliable permalink to a specific location, so what exactly is it good for? My example also sucks for direct user input (for reasons you mentioned: lat/long coordinates are not user friendly), but at least they're better permalinks. I'm not sure if a solution exists that does both well, and even then, I'm not sure if it can beat search (hell, people already search for "facebook" on Google rather than typing "facebook.com" into their address bar, so how are we going to get people to use this?).

egypturnash 14y ago
It's good for cutting and pasting into human-readable text: Hey guys come to the launch party for my new startup! 9pm Saturday, at the Mumblefrotz office: http://maps.google.com/united-states/california/san-francisco/mission-dolores/valencia-st/199 http://maps.google.com/united-states/california/san-francisc... (Note: no actual party Saturday, and that's the example URL the post pointed to.) In real world usage people will very often just cut and paste URLs directly into text, rather than figure out how to turn it into a link. Would you rather have this kind of link dumped in as plaintext, or would you rather have a lengthy machine-friendly link full of raw lat/long data, view choices, dbrefs, and whatnot? Sure, fall back to a geolocation URL if it's not a point on a street grid. But I suspect that a huge percentage of the map URLs that people pass around are on street grids.
- saalweachter 14y ago
  You can fashion pretty URLs for Google maps now: https://maps.google.com/?q=123+main+st+new+paltz+ny https://maps.google.com/?q=123+main+st+new+paltz+ny
- micheljansen 14y ago
  > I suspect that a huge percentage of the map URLs that people pass around are on street grids. Then you probably live in the US. Most of the world is not so neatly gridded as the US. URLs should first and foremost point to the resource (in this case a maps page) that you expect them to. This URL scheme cannot guarantee that, so it's a bad idea. It could work if you include a post code, but a post code is only marginally less ugly than a lat/long pair.
- barryhunter 14y ago
  Just add /places/ in that URL, then it works... https://maps.google.com/places/united-states/california/san-francisco/mission-dolores/valencia-st/199 https://maps.google.com/places/united-states/california/san-...
kamjam 14y ago
I agree with you on this one. I think for some websites it makes sense, but for a maps application I think it makes no difference. Some times for example you are not actually linking to an address or a building for example, and you want precise coordinates. Just very randomly: https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=47.413395,-77.029266&ll=47.400964,-77.029781&spn=0.051996,0.126772&num=1&t=m&z=14&iwloc=near https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=47.413395,-77.029266&ll=47...
- Terretta 14y ago
  > Some times for example you are not actually linking to an address You, and the parent you're agreeing with, seem to have overlooked I'd already made that point: > Presumably one would fall back to lat/lon if one is trying to do something other than find an address.
Terretta 14y ago
URLs too often devolve into machine formats for no good reason other than that its easier for machines (read, the machines' developers). Friendly URLs help people understand the hierarchy of information and orient themselves within it. Friendly URLs serve as a kind of breadcrumb navigation. Friendly URLs are "hackable" by normals. > not precise enough to serve as a reliable permalink to a specific location If delivering mail is solvable, and considering the miracle of Street View exists, surely giving each address its own human-friendly URL is solvable too. > And who types URLs anyway. Everyone who uses the web.

egypturnash 14y ago

It's good for cutting and pasting into human-readable text: Hey guys come to the launch party for my new startup! 9pm Saturday, at the Mumblefrotz office: http://maps.google.com/united-states/california/san-francisco/mission-dolores/valencia-st/199 http://maps.google.com/united-states/california/san-francisc... (Note: no actual party Saturday, and that's the example URL the post pointed to.) In real world usage people will very often just cut and paste URLs directly into text, rather than figure out how to turn it into a link. Would you rather have this kind of link dumped in as plaintext, or would you rather have a lengthy machine-friendly link full of raw lat/long data, view choices, dbrefs, and whatnot? Sure, fall back to a geolocation URL if it's not a point on a street grid. But I suspect that a huge percentage of the map URLs that people pass around are on street grids.

saalweachter 14y ago
You can fashion pretty URLs for Google maps now: https://maps.google.com/?q=123+main+st+new+paltz+ny https://maps.google.com/?q=123+main+st+new+paltz+ny
micheljansen 14y ago
> I suspect that a huge percentage of the map URLs that people pass around are on street grids. Then you probably live in the US. Most of the world is not so neatly gridded as the US. URLs should first and foremost point to the resource (in this case a maps page) that you expect them to. This URL scheme cannot guarantee that, so it's a bad idea. It could work if you include a post code, but a post code is only marginally less ugly than a lat/long pair.
barryhunter 14y ago
Just add /places/ in that URL, then it works... https://maps.google.com/places/united-states/california/san-francisco/mission-dolores/valencia-st/199 https://maps.google.com/places/united-states/california/san-...

kamjam 14y ago

I agree with you on this one. I think for some websites it makes sense, but for a maps application I think it makes no difference. Some times for example you are not actually linking to an address or a building for example, and you want precise coordinates. Just very randomly: https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=47.413395,-77.029266&ll=47.400964,-77.029781&spn=0.051996,0.126772&num=1&t=m&z=14&iwloc=near https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=47.413395,-77.029266&ll=47...

Terretta 14y ago
> Some times for example you are not actually linking to an address You, and the parent you're agreeing with, seem to have overlooked I'd already made that point: > Presumably one would fall back to lat/lon if one is trying to do something other than find an address.

Terretta 14y ago

URLs too often devolve into machine formats for no good reason other than that its easier for machines (read, the machines' developers). Friendly URLs help people understand the hierarchy of information and orient themselves within it. Friendly URLs serve as a kind of breadcrumb navigation. Friendly URLs are "hackable" by normals. > not precise enough to serve as a reliable permalink to a specific location If delivering mail is solvable, and considering the miracle of Street View exists, surely giving each address its own human-friendly URL is solvable too. > And who types URLs anyway. Everyone who uses the web.